The Financial Times seeks applicants for the Sir Samuel Brittan fellowship. Announcing this, the paper refers to him as Sir Samuel, which is correct. It also quotes its obituary of him where he is called simply Brittan. That is also correct for a dead man, as we might say Churchill, not Sir Winston. It would have been wrong, though, to call Brittan Sir Brittan. That is a rule of the English language.
Yet the FT has taken to referring to peers by their first names and titles, with Lord tacked on before: Lord David Cameron, Lord David Alton. That is as wrong as to say Sir Brittan.
The FT style depends on the theory that everyone has two names and the first name distinguishes them from others with the same surname. So the paper would refer to Lord Conrad Black and Lord Guy Black. But this is not how they are differentiated in the House of Lords.
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